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It's funny how apparently scientists created the society the kids live in, but that society looks completely based on religion.

There's a famous saying - "religion is the opiate of the masses" - which applies here.

Everything in this society is crafted to keep those with PK under control and living in harmony. To do this the scientists have not only manipulated the human genome to include things like Death Feedback etc., but have set up systems and controls.

It's been very much insinuated by this point that the Temple's ceremonies are more about mental conditioning than anything religious. By wrapping up their tests and (essentially) brainwashing in Buddhist trappings, they encourage the children not to question anything they've been taught or forced to do. Their society is based on adherence to rules that they don't try and understand but merely accept - which is what many scientists consider religion to do, seeing as they are based in faith.

The Japan of this New World has co-opted Buddhism and Shinto for essentially scientific purposes. We may never know how the rest of the world chooses to manipulate PK users as the show has thus far been unsurprisingly Japan-centric - perhaps there are similar controls in place using Islam, Sikhism and Christianity in other countries around the world if there's anyone left living in them.

I honestly find it a bit surprising how some viewers of this anime have an extremely hard time imagining that the scientist class could do something ethically questionable and oppressive to some people.

Fiction is loaded with villainous scientists who do generally villainous things. The term "Mad Scientist" didn't start with Okabe Rintarou...

And even putting that aside, I think that many perfectly sane and reasonable scientists would prioritize the survival of the human species above just about anything. To that end, it's not hard to see how they could rationalize (to themselves) tightly controlling the world's PK population through the setup that we have in this New World in Japan.

Oh, I don't doubt that scientists could set up a system like this, but the way Shun jumped to the conclusion that their society is descended from the scientific faction sounded like wishful thinking to me -- "The hunter-gatherers didn't have PK and the other two groups were evil, therefore we must be the heirs of the science culture."

It's not really wishful thinking if you pay careful attention to what is shown in the last 3 episodes. We see from Saki's point view that a lot of things that she experienced are really a form of conditioning, from her family, the ritual of her coming of ages in terms of her pk power, to the education in the school. Shun is likely even more perceptive and have already figured much of this out. The library simply filled in missing pieces of puzzles for him.

It's not really wishful thinking if you pay careful attention to what is shown in the last 3 episodes. We see from Saki's point view that a lot of things that she experienced are really a form of conditioning, from her family, the ritual of her coming of ages in terms of her pk power, to the education in the school. Shun is likely even more perceptive and have already figured much of this out. The library simply filled in missing pieces of puzzles for him.

But none of that indicates that their society is descended from the scientific faction, only that it was set up by them. Shun ignores the possibility that their village is a prison created by the science types, and he does so because he can't accept that his society could be descended from the raiders and emperors.

I wonder what was up with that dark woman the Rijin (sp?) summoned to deal with the queerats. I was thinking it was a reaper of some sort due to the scythe.. Whatever it was, it was creepily cool, and I hope it/she makes another appearance.

I think that female shadow was a queer rat. They are likely devolved human.

Hm, but wasn't it the monk who summoned that spirit-like entity? I agree that the queerats probably used to be human, but I don't think it's possible for humans to summon other humans, be they devolved or not.

Basically, this episode was a melding of Matrix philosophies, Evolutionism, and Shinto beliefs.

Then, all the prologue shown at the start of the previous episodes account for several instances of this world's human history.

It makes sense the why the children's society, which emerged from its Dark Ages period, places particular attention in conditioning, education, and learning, though according to the librarion was far from perfect.
Tapering with the human genome to add the peaceful traits found in bonobo primates did not completely prevent some human individuals from give in to their dark desires once becoming aware of their PK powers. Hence, the other complement added which was the "death feedback" to prevent human with PK from harming humans who did not develop PK or other humans of their kind.

What poses another interesting topic is that we're learning the scientists took their chances and made their move once the PK users from the Emperor-slave era started to decline.
They likely culled survivors from that era that they deemed too amorally dangerous to be left alive.
We wonder what about the bandit groups with PK and tribesmen hunters and farmers who didn't develop PK? I'm starting to believe like all of you that likely the Bakenezumi branched off from humans, and probably they did from the ordinary tribesmen group.